House of Windsor Food Travel Diary

I recently made an unexpected trip to Singapore for a week. My eldest son’s 40th birthday was looming and the eight hour trip to Singapore was a far more attractive option to the 24 hour trip to London where he resides.

When the opportunity presented itself, I decided that it was a good option. Since Mark was in Singapore for work, the idea was that I would spend the evenings with him, experiencing the food of Singapore and attend the various cooking schools that I had researched during the day.

It is quite some time since I visited Singapore and memories and reminders of past visits came flooding back as I exited Singapore Airport.  The “smell” of Singapore is something that one never forgets.

Come April every year the Tembusu and Angsana trees perfume the Singapore air already heavily laden with moisture. The Angsana trees are massive and when in bloom whole neighbourhoods are scented with their perfume. Tembusa trees can be spotted all over the island lining roadways and in university campuses

Also at this time of year, the large feathery flowers of the Durian tree give off their heavy, sour, buttery odour. These flowers are closed during the day, giving off their heavy perfume at night in preparation for the bearing of the fruit in June, July and August.

The combination of all these perfumes is unforgettable.

It is said that Singapore is in perpetual summer as there are no seasons to speak of other than the “Rainy Season” and the “Sunny Season”.  Singapore is a large bustling island city of some 5 million inhabitants that comes alive only after 10 am and continues throughout the day and well into the night.

Singaporeans appear to eat all day every day and the aroma of spicy foods permeates the air on almost every street corner. The hawkers markets have moved from one location to another over the years but are still very much in existence.

Our first evening visit was to the hawkers markets at Gluttons Bay where we sat on the bay and enjoyed the most beautiful fresh BBQ seafood cooked to perfection. We sat for hours watching the comings and goings of the water traffic and enjoying the balmy evening air.

A trip to Singapore is not complete without a visit to Boat Quay. Boat Quay was once, as the name suggests, a quay on the Singapore River where the traders moored their boats whilst dealing in Singapore. Apart from the Irish pub where a pint of cold beer is available, the atmosphere and setting is informal and Boat Quay is essentially a restaurant precinct.  Thai, Indian, Italian, Chinese, you name it.  Chilli Crab is offered at almost every restaurant, all of which look similar from the outside, have tables on the river and persistent touts making offers to try to entice you in. This area is close to the business district and is a good place to enjoy a quiet drink while looking out across the river at Raffles Place or along the skyscrapers of the CBD.

The main hawkers market in this part of the city is Lau Pa Sat (meaning old market). The market had its beginnings as a simple building supported on pylons over the water on Telok Ayer Bay in the early 1800’s. Today it is housed in an historic building in the central business district .The market is located in and around a beautiful old building that had its beginnings in Victorian times. It has been moved and revived several times, the cast iron supports and arches being reinstated each time. As with most of Singapore, it comes alive at night being heavily supported by locals. The food was great and the atmosphere simple and relaxed

We met friends at the restaurant “Indocine” This restaurant is also at Boat Quay on the opposite side of the river to the restaurants discussed earlier. It is set up on the terrace outside the Asian Civilisation Museum.. The setting is beautiful. Finely set tables on the terrace with views of the Singapore River and looking back across the river to the high rises of the business district. Vietnamese, Laos and Khymer influenced fusion food at its best. We enjoyed it enough to visit twice.

After dinner our friends took us to the Singapore Cricket Club where they are members. In all of the visits to Singapore over the years this was the first opportunity to visit the Club, which has always been one of the premier sports and social clubs in the City. The Club situated on the Padang stands in the centre of the city’s colonial heart. The club had humble beginnings with 28 members in 1853 but by the 1880’s membership had grown to over 400 and membership was seen as a ‘social feather in the cap” by the powerbrokers and decision makers in the government of the day. Today the Club has over 3,000 active members.

And the Cooking Schools……… I booked into three different schools and disappointingly, each was cancelled because they did not have the numbers required to run the classes!

However, despite this, I had a lovely visit with my son and we celebrated his birthday in style in Singapore.

I started to write this in London when I visited earlier this year to visit with my son and his family and to meet my newest grandchild……Miss Sophie Ann Cameron.

The weather was foul in London at the time and as a result, I spent a great deal of time looking at food and retail trends in order to keep out of the sleet and snow.

And what an experience that was…

I spent some time in a store called “Wholefoods” in High Street, Kensington. This is a most amazing store and one of a kind in London. The concept revolves around foods that are cooked in their own kitchens daily, in quantities reminiscent of what you would see in the entire Myer Centre in Brisbane.

Here the threads of multiculturalism as we see in London today are visible with what seems like every cuisine known to man represented. Apart from the prepared foods that sees the store teaming with people in the middle of the day streaming in to enjoy the incredible array of food available, this store is a retail delicatessen.

They have an enormous leg of Jamon from an Iberico pig set up on a metal stand so that you can order what you require and stand and watch while they slice it off for you.

The retail displays have to be seen to be believed. Tables are piled high with great wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano paired with crates of Prosecco and various breads and meats to enjoy. Another table was piled high with wheels of Provolone Mandarone and another full of wheels of the ever popular Quickes Cheddar.

The range of take home meal solutions both ready to heat and others prepared and ready to cook is enormous and they look amazing. I enjoyed the bakery particularly with its displays of beautiful freshly baked breads in displays that look almost too good to touch to remove even one loaf . The retail displays were fantastic. In short, it is a very glamorous deli and takeaway.

Next was a visit to another favourite spot of mine at Duke of York Square in Kings Road, Chelsea.

Partridges is a very beautiful general store with a very large and impressive gold PARTRIDGES sign on its shop front. It sells beautifully packaged foods and drinks imported from their near neighbours, France, Italy, Spain and in fact from many parts the world.

If I were a Londoner, it is where I would go to find a special gift for a “foodie” or to find a special ingredient for a recipe.

Vegetables like beans and mange tout are all topped and tailed and cut to the same length ready to be cooked and served all packed in rows in the refrigerators… all looking almost too beautiful to touch.
Every variety of artisan pasta that you can think of along with much, much more is available.

I spent many hours there simply looking and learning and reading labels. The merchandising in these places is amazing as they can truly “pile it high and watch it fly” as, in London, they have a customer base that we, in retail, all dream of.

I stood and watched a man lovingly polish and stack an enormous crate of very “green looking” mangoes (“green looking” to a North Queensalander!!) into a very artistically arranged pile then carefully place the sign……. Mangoes 2 pounds each!! (and it is mango season here also)

Last but not least was a visit to Harrods Food Hall. I try always to go there as it was the first of the truly memorable food merchandising houses that I recall from my earliest visits overseas.

It was once something that was one of a kind. It is still one of a kind but now there other facilities that compete with the Harrods Food Hall and do a very good job of it. Harrods still has the edge when it comes to variety, packaging, range of product and presentation. The range and presentation of fruit and vegetables is amazing. Nowhere else would you see such a variety of fish roe of every description. It is always a learning experience as I always see things that are in season in Europe that we just read about in recipe books. I saw an amazing array of citrus along with a huge display of tomatoes of every description, size and colour. It is always a pleasure to spend time in these places and a trip to London is not complete without a trip to this store.